Only during summer and only when the sun is close to the horizon the light from the sun confuses my garage door opener and in order to close the door I have to hold down the wired button which is a real pain if I'm leaving.

A friend suggested I use toilet paper rolls (or maybe some PVC) to shield the sensor from the sun and direct the beam to the other sensor and that's a good idea but it'll mean I have to change how the sensors are mounted to the track and move them out a bit. Just moving them back might solve the problem (since they'll be blocked by the walls).

I believe he's talking about the safety sensor beam at the bottom of the door opening, which is always IR. Not the sensor that actually receives the remote open/close signal, which is always RF.
–
Mike PowellJul 29 '10 at 19:03

I have this problem as well, only it occurs when the sun is brightest, for the few hours around 1pm on the brightest days of summer.
–
PortmanJul 29 '10 at 19:10

8 Answers
8

You probably only have to shield the sensor just enough to put a shadow over it (and not let the sun hit it directly). I would think a small piece of cardboard taped to the side or top (or both) of the sensor that is getting hit with the sun should do it.

Another way would be to block the sun from outside of the garage by maybe planting a shrub (test it out by putting your garbage can in line to block the sun when it is low in the sky and see if it works).

I had the same issue. I tried shading both the sensor and the emitter with card board and toilet paper rolls. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Today it wouldn't cooperate at all. I even tried re-aiming the sensors. I was able to prove that it was the sun causing the issue by closing the door, disengaging the door from the opener, and activating the opener. It worked fine with the door closed. So....after giving it some thought..... I decided to find some glass cleaner. I cleaned the sensor and the emitter. After that it worked fine even in direct sunlight without any type of shading. Hope this idiot fix helps!!!!

I used an old pair of polarized plastic safety sunglasses that were $6.00 new. I cut one lens off and slid it behind the sensor so that it covers the lens: no more sun problem stopping the beam so the door now works.

You could swap the emitter and detector units so that the emitter is on the sunlit side. It doesn't matter if the emitter is being blasted by sunlight; only the detector needs to be protected. Of course you might just be changing the time of day of your problem if the other side of the door is sunlit at a different time. :)

What's interesting is that it happens in the morning or evening at just the right time so I'm not sure the emitter/detector swap would help. That said, how can I tell which is which? They look the same. Can I just switch it at the opener itself? Just curious as it wouldn't help anyway.
–
tooshelJul 29 '10 at 21:25

1

On mine anyway, the detector has a little LED light that goes either off or on (don't remember which) when the beam is blocked, and the emitter doesn't. You couldn't just switch wires at the opener, since the emitter & detector aren't the same hardware.
–
Mike PowellJul 29 '10 at 23:55

I purposely installed the emitter on the sunny side of mine to avoid this problem, yet I still get this once in a while. Either the installation instructions erroneously identified which is the emitter, or the glare off the emitter lens is enough to confuse the detector. Grrrr! Even more annoying is you can't just shade the device once it's confused, it's "blown out" some how, and takes many minutes before it recovers.
–
bcworkzNov 18 '12 at 0:34